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In the wake of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans help one another

By Oren DorellUSA Today

Sun., Oct. 1, 2017

NARANJITO, PUERTO RICO—Thirty-two kilometres from their capital of San Juan, Puerto Ricans are still marooned in a once-lush landscape that Hurricane Maria raked almost entirely of greenery 10 days ago.

They are without running water, electricity or consistent communications with the rest of the world.

Melany Diaz, in hat, in front of her damaged home in Vieques, Puerto Rico on Saturday. Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello said Saturday that the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency and Puerto Rican National Guard are working to deliver food and water to hard-to-access places, set up telecommunications in municipal centres and deliver needed supplies to hospitals. (KIRSTEN LUCE / The New York Times)

Obtaining necessities such as water, food and fuel for cars and generators is a daylong mission for each item. But across the Plata River from a long line of cars and people waiting for drinkable water from a tower, a smaller line formed near a PVC pipe trickling water from a hillside spring.

Nicolle Ramos, 29, of nearby Toa Alta, said her family uses the water for bathing, flushing toilets and — after it’s boiled — drinking.

“When it rains, we don’t come,” Ramos said as she watched people fill coolers, pails and bottles to put in their cars. “We gather water from the downspouts and wash clothes by hand.”

Michelle Rebollo, Ramos’ mother, said gathering this water was today’s task.

“Tomorrow we’re going to try to find gasoline,” Rebollo said. “Then, we’ll try to get money. Each one is a whole day.”

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello said Saturday that 714 gas stations, more than half the stations in Puerto Rico, are operating and receiving fuel. But many of the stations lining the roads near Naranjito were closed or confronted travellers with a sign: “No hay gasolina,” no gasoline.

Puerto Rico will receive more fuel in coming days, with eight deliveries from Sunday to Saturday, Rossello said.

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The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Puerto Rican National Guard are working to deliver food and water to hard-to-access places, set up telecommunications in municipal centres and deliver needed supplies to hospitals, the governor said.

“Today we have 51 to 53 of 69 hospitals open, depending on how you measure it,” he said. “Nine of those hospitals are energized,” meaning they have a normal electric power supply and do not depend on an emergency generator.

The death toll from Maria has reached 16 so far and is likely to rise, the governor said.

U.S. Coast Guard personnel, Federal and local aid workers and Puerto Rican police officers teamed up to deliver 3,000 meals and 4,500 litres of water to Humacao, Puerto Rico on Tuesday. Military officials also viewed damage in Guaynabo. (The Associated Press)

However, much of the recovery reaching average people in towns such as Naranjito is a result of Puerto Ricans helping each other.

Rebollo, whose tour company, Aventura Total, is at least temporarily out of business, said she has turned to helping her neighbours find water and gasoline.

“Where I live, there’s a lot of old people living,” she said. “Sometimes they need medications. I help them.”

At the Centro de Salud Entegra en Narajito, the health centre nearby, administrator Felix Ortiz Baez said gastroenteritis from drinking tainted water is among the most common injuries he’s seeing since the hurricane. Others are pink eye, falls and cuts from chainsaws and machetes.

The water should be boiled, but some people don’t have the facilities or education to do it, Ortiz Baez said, speaking a mix of English and Spanish.

The health centre most needs more diesel for its generator, bottled water and portable generators to provide to families.

The centre never closed, and together with two sister facilities in the area, it’s treating an average of 125 cases a day.

“We had a fairly robust plan for emergencies, but we weren’t ready for such a catastrophic event,” he said.

Across the river and up in the town, where homes painted green, blue, purple and white climb the steep hillside among serpentine roads, Michelle Narvaez, 40, had just returned from grocery shopping. It entailed waiting in line for more than an hour and paying twice the usual price.

“When I cook, I cook a lot, but I can’t keep it because there’s no electricity,” Narvaez said in Spanish.

So she buys what she’s going to cook each day and feeds her neighbours, including Marta Rodriguez, 54, who sat on a nearby stoop.

Narvaez’s home survived the raking that turned her lush hillside into a landscape of sticks, but she said she won’t stay long if things don’t improve soon.

Stories of survival and separation dominate the feelings of hurricane survivors arriving in New York City where many have family and friends. (The Associated Press)

“We need water and power,” she said. “I have a little one 4 years old, and he has allergies and asthma.”

At the Ruben Rodriguez Figuera vocational high school on the other side of the hill, 119 displaced people have turned the facility into a shelter organized according to a military regimen.

Sgt. Jose Castillo, 52, of the Puerto Rico National Guard State Guard military police has run the place ever since Hurricane Maria left his home in nearby Comerio a wreck of sodden and splintered broken boards.

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” Castillo said in Spanish. “I lost everything. Only my military uniform. Apart from this, I have nothing.”

So he walked to the shelter with his wife, presented himself and said: “I said, ‘I’m yours.’ ”

Drawing on his military background, Castillo made the shelter and its residents his mission. Standing in the school’s theatre, which has been transformed into a storage room for donated goods with clothing neatly sorted by gender and size, he described how he asked for volunteers among shelter residents and organized them into teams to catalogue donations, work in the kitchen and clean.

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